Two GREAT Sundays in a row

 

Here you go.  Hereford Racecourse.  This is the route (up the Roman Road) I always use to get into Hereford for shopping/hospital, and of course drive right on past on the way to Malvern.  Back in the day, Keith used to parachute onto the centre of the racecourse (in his Army days).

I wanted to see if it was one worth doing (answer probably no), but it was lovely to have a busman's holiday, and just wander round at my leisure, under no pressure, and look at what was on offer.  A couple of nice stalls, but most of it not what appeals to me.  This would take some moving on . . .

Ammonites - but they look to be concrete . . .

A lovely big bushel corn measure and part of our agricultural history.  A rare survivor.  I liked that, but not the price, and that would take up a LOT of room on any stand.

This I took a photo of as Tam and I were talking about them only a couple of days ago.  She said Jon was always on the look out for such things. I said I had honestly never seen one except on Antiques Roadshow!  Until today!!

From the Antiques Fair - it only took me about 40 mins to walk very slowly round and then once around outside again -  I went into Hereford and sat outside of Dunelm and Hobbycraft, waiting for them to open (not until 10.30).  I thought I would go in Hobbycraft first and check out what batting they had.  I managed to get some without breaking the bank, in sufficient thickness, plus another bag marked £3 which appeared to be batting of a similar thickness.  This is for the pink quilt I mended.  Then as I needed some different DMC colour-changing embroidery floss, I browsed slowly and bought 4 I liked the colours of, plus four of their Perle embroidery threads.  At least there was plenty of choice there.  The little wool shop in Llandod has a very basic selection - just plain embroidery floss and no multi coloured ones.  

Now, I would swear I have just turned that in Edit so it's the right way up.  This was my jewel of the day - for just £1 at the Antiques Fair.  It is a brilliant book.  I checked out churches on the route to Madley, and visited two.  Clehonger was sadly shut (padlocked door), but Eaton Bishop wasn't.  Just wait till you see the Medieval stained glass - it is internationally important.  Another post . . .

Not a very clear photo as if my camera does distance shots, or if it does, damned if I know where to find out where to alter the distance to take them.  That anyway, is a couple of acres of Meadowsweet on the Common.  Breathtaking.

As I sat in the queue to park at the car boot sale I took a photo of this pretty little cottage.

Nothing for me at the boot sale, but I did get some lovely fresh runner beans (first picking of the season) for £2 a big bag, and for just £2.20 (not like the £5 a different ice cream vendor was charging at Malvern last week) I got a mile-high Mr Whippee ice cream.  Oh I did enjoy that!  Shan't bother with this car boot again.  Whilst dozens and dozens of people were waiting to be let in, I could see dealers (who had paid the £8 to get in and sell but actually just to park and shop early) walking round dragging camping trolleys. Plus sellers there to get rid of their stuff, having a wander round.  No wonder it was picked clean by the time they finally let us in.  

I had a lovely drive home.  The wild flowers are SO beautiful at the moment.  Verges with millions of tiny pink or white bindweed wher the verge met the tarmac.  Lots of Common purple Mallow, pink Musk Mallow, purple Meadow Cranesbill, stately Rosebay Willowherb (Fireweed to those of you in USA/Canada) nodding as cars passed it, Meadowsweet by the acre near Eaton Bishop, Purple Tufted Vetch in the hedgerows, Honeysuckle.   Despite my limited knowledge of architecture I could roughly date houses and cottages as I passed - some lovely black and white half-timbered ones included.  Memories too - places Keith and I had been together (that boot sale included), Bredwardine where we tried so hard to buy the old schoolhouse which wasn't meant for us, Bredwardine church where Kilvert is buried.  A gentle, healing, happiness just in that landscape . . .

So now I am going to have a quiet evening with my new-to-me book and a glass of wine.  Tea is runner beans (of course) and a piece of my home made pizza from the freezer.  I had a quick shop in Asda as I was about to head out on the A465, and got my shopping for the week.  Meals to be courtesy of my freezer and storecupboard. Tomorrow night is going to be pork chop cut up for a stir fry.  I have some nice stir fry veg in the freezer.  Only thing I would have liked with it is beanshoots but you can't have everything.

Cooler?

 I blardy hope so.  Falling out of love with sleeping on the sofa.  Was awake 2 hrs in the middle of the night before it was cool enough upstairs to go to bed and then I didn't wait until 8.30 so such a late start to my day (which has been 5.30ish for the past few weeks).  There is at least a good breeze today and some clouds.  18 deg at present.  I can cope with that. Humidity 83% though.  Not so good.  We seem to have missed the lively theatre of storms and wowzer lightening which went through Thursday night/early hours Friday morning.  No rain either.

I didn't go to the monthly Friday meeting of the Spinners/Weavers/Dyers as I can't drive when it's that hot and so I hid indoors again.  Tbh, I don't think it's for me as they are all so passionate about it all and I just wanted to learn a few things.  One lady had been going 6 mths and hadn't a clue how to spin, so I assume they aren't terribly helpful.  Instead I put some Boiled Linseed oil on one of the little chairs and it is greatly improved already, having been in the dipping tank which does no wood any good whatsoever.  Another coat today and tomorrow and then some wax polish to finish it off.  

Meadowsweet.  Plant of the ancients and traces of pollen found in Bell Beaker burials - inside Bell Beaker cups, apparently used to flavour a milk drink, along with honey.  A drink to take into the afterlife.  

I now have 42 blocks sewn.  I intended to do a few more yesterday but got sidetracked by other jobs which needed doing.  One thing I couldn't face was potting on tomatoes nor moving cucumbers (I have lots!) or Tam's Cantaloupe melons up to the polytunnel, which I cleared out recently.  Perhaps today.  Happy to work in RAIN today!!

I finished reading Kate Ellis' book The Funeral Boat.  Now I'm on The Mechanical Devil which is set on Dartmoor.  Nice light reading.  I did a bit of stitching on my Intuitive Stitching panel last night, just making up a design as I went long, as kj Turner does.

I'll show some more from the top row tomorrow.

Now I had better get a return slip for the absolutely crappy "2 oz" batting I bought on Amazon.  They show a roll and then it comes as probably pulled out of a pillow.  Now, you think I would have learned my lesson before . . .  Will HAVE to go to Doughtys for the batting for two quilts.

Sometimes I surprise myself!

 

The white cotton fabric (I will buy it again) arrived on Tuesday afternoon.  I set to and made up 4 6" blocks.  I was careful to cut very accurately and sew accurately too, and so most of these are spot on pieceing-wise.  I'm quite pleased with myself. After my early walk yesterday it was just too darn hot to do anything, so in between liberating bats (I think 5 was the final count) and drinking water, I sat and sewed, and cut more white fabric, and sewed again and the final count yesterday was 21 blocks!  Blimey.  Plus the 4 I'd done on Tuesday.

It is to be a simple Irish Chain.  

I had a little wander across to Temu to look at their patchwork stuff and found that the fabric I had bought from Ebay had been sourced from Temu, then sold on.  I don't blame her.  We all have to live.  It was still cheap.  I may have ordered a couple of things . . . more pink fabrics.  A pretty print with butterflies on, and some binding for the quilt I set the centre back in last week.  £16.82.  It would have cost a LOT more from Doughty's, although obviously they are selling top quality fabrics. I know, Temu and their business ethics and what have you.  I think they have cleaned up their act a bit nowadays. I will make little "I" a quilt for Christmas, and finish the yellow and blue one I also got at the auction for Rosie.

I was out of the house before 7, and it was a lovely cool misty morning.  I blew it today as that was the time I woke up, having slept until 4 a.m. on the sofa, and then upstairs to a bedroom just about cool enough to sleep in.  I didn't get up until 8 today, which is unheard of!  5.30 has been the average recently.  It was already too hot for a walk.  There is a bit of a breeze out there today.  Would love a good drenching.  You know how you often wish for a day of summer in the middle of winter?  Well, now I could do with a wet and miserable winter day !

I had problems with bats all day.  In the end I think I liberated 5.  2 possibly might not make it as they were thirsty and had been in the water bowl.  One was in the bath, and I put that out early.  Another I had to be a bit ingenious with and persuade it off the curtain and onto a length of header tape, which I then hung out of the window . . .

Gosh, I need to get the window woodwork repainted and windows cleaned . . . but that is on the half landing at the top of steep stairs, so will get one of my offspring to help out with those jobs.

And this is Bat Junior.  Only an inch or so long. It had been there a couple of days, in the folds of the curtain.  There was a bat on the curtain again yesterday - not sure if mum or not.  Anyway, worried about it in this heat and no mum to feed it, so Tam got me the number of the Bat Conservation Trust and I phoned them yesterday evening.  They put me in touch with a localish bat lady, and following instructions (wear gloves, wear a mask as they can catch germs from us) I persuaded it into a little aerated box, with a lid with a little water in it and a aged linen teatowel to snuggle inside and set off for Merthyr Cynog.  The lady was lovely, said it was a Pipistrelle, only a week old, and quite lively (which was a relief).  She will keep me posted as to its progress.  She already had a 2 week old Daubenton bat and a couple of month old Pipistrelles, and obviously knew exactly what to do - dehydrate first and then start on feeds.  Hoping it will survive.  It was a lovely evening for a drive, but unfortunately I must have taken a wrong turn on the journey back and ended up driving for miles along lanes that led ???  Eventually I got spat out in the middle of Brecon.  At least I knew my way back from there!  I was a bit worried as I had forgotten to take my asthma inhalers before leaving home and of course, high pollen levels and open car windows not a good combination.  I was VERY glad to get back home.  It was way too hot to sleep upstairs, so I slept on the sofa until 4 a.m. when it was just about cool enough to be a bit nearer the bathroom.

I had a phone call from the vet yesterday, to say that LW's ashes were ready for collection.  I was in tears on the phone, so hope I can hold it together in the surgery this morning.  The bill will be in several hundreds of course.

Right, this won't do.  Hoping it will soon cool down.  

Oooh, P.S.  Rosie had her eye test with the specialist yesterday.  No inflammation.  Eyesight perfect.  Long may it last, but the arthritis problem means she needs tests every three months to check.

Too hot for me

 I did my walk early this morning , setting off 7.45 but should have gone out at 7 as it was starting to get quite hot when I was out, although I did have tree shade for 3/4 of the route.

The world and his wife are cutting hay.  The nearest farm has done several enormous fields (they have cattle and sheep to feed over the winter).  

It's 22 deg downstairs and 25 in my bedroom, which faces North.  Humidity 76% which does my asthma no good whatsoever.  I have bought my sewing machine downstairs and will start cutting out the 2 1/2" pink strips I've just bought from Ebay, into 2 1/2" squares to make a start on the Irish Chain quilt I am making Danny and Emma as a housewarming gift.

I've just bought down my small cutting board and the fabrics, which aren't the best quality (not Moda, that's for sure) but will look good with the white fabric I'm awaiting delivery of.  I was hoping to combine a trip to the Hereford Racecourse Antiques Fair with a visit to Doughty's, the patchwork shop, but it's Sunday, not Saturday.  Ah well, I will combine the trip with a visit to the Car Boot Sale at Madley instead, and still go to Doughty's another day, as my patchwork group trip to the huge Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham, has been cancelled as it costs so much to rent even just a 12 seater coach.  That would have been £40+ a head just for that, and then £22.20 to get in, plus a leetle spending money, would have been one heck of an expensive day out!  At least I can go to the Malvern Quilt Festival in the Autumn - I didn't go to the Spring one because I thought I would save my money for the NEC trip . . .

I am sat here with the windows wide open in the kitchen, listening to birdsong and planning my afternoon.  I don't need to cook as I made myself a four portion pizza last night.  Dough made up in breadmaker (45 mins cycle), then the last portion of some tomato, onion, mushroom, and courgette sauce from a pasta dish last week, with some extra fresh courgette fried up and added.  I had some ham left over from the pack for my lunch rolls on Sunday, so I tore that into strips.  Then used the last piece of Cheddar which needed using up to top it.  I will heat a slice up tonight and have frozen the other two portions.  I far prefer my home made ones to the boughten sort.

It really hit the spot and was such a cheap dish to make.

If you are thinking, what did I buy at Malvern?  Not a huge amount, a Beswick Deco vase in the right colourway, a metal Scottie dog, a painted stool to display things on and a funny little "seat on wheels", once upholstered, and probably the base of an early child's toy pram.  It had a look . . .  Lots I should like to have bought, but they were already High Street retail prices.

Oh and a little foal which could be Sylvac but I think is a copy as not the detail and not stamped.

Keep cool everyone.  Oh and if you live anywhere near Glastonbury, that was QUITE the storm!!!  Talk about a cloudburst . . .

One last field waiting to be turned and then baled this afternoon.  Right, let's hope I can do some cutting without involving my fingers getting in the way!

Breakfast with a bat on a Malvern Sunday

I did a double take and thought it was a Tarantula at first!

 Even Pipistrelles look quite large when flying round in a smallish room.  My alarm WAS indeed set at bat-o'clock, 4.45 a.m., and when I came downstairs, there was a blardy bat doing circles of the kitchen.  I opened the half landing window open wide but would it go up the stairs?  Nope . . . Eventually it flew into the Library and holed up in there.  I have just found it, covered in cobwebs and possibly mauled by a cat, on the kitchen floor, so I have given its liberty outside, under the shade of a bush.  I use those foil topped Muller yoghurt pots for rescuing both mice/voles and bats. This hot weather always brings the bats out from under the roof tiles, who can blame them? They manage sometimes to come down the attic stairs and as I had had to remove a pee'd on towel which was blocking the gap beneath the door, can currently make an escape bid.  I will have to put clean towel back down now it's been boiled.

This was one of 12 prop Angels from a church for a recentish production.  They must have auctions as someone else was selling film props too.

The window bottom left was a film prop, can't recall which film though.

A few lesser quilts . . .

Another on the same stall, slightly more desirable.

Something I know nothing about, teddies and distressed soft toys.  I imagine they sell though.

I cannot get excited about rusty/galvanized watering cans.  One chap had his camping trolley full of them.

I know I like the unusual, but carrying this from Fair to Fair would be a bit of a challenge - not easy to pack around!!

Pine cones anyone?

One of my favourite stands, as usual.

I never find little dollies like this when I am going round the Fairs.

I'd love to get Rosie a doll's house like that one.

Round the Avon Hall.  I don't think I'd like the "thing" far right eyeballing me from my wall!  Or the thing on the left either!  Tailor's dummy with a strange mask on it (below).

I liked this antique cherub but not the price tag (think it was around £350!)

From the sublime to the ridiculous - ok, this old farrier's hand-made toolbox really DOES have the look but at, wait for it, £300!, I think he will be looking at that Look for quite a while.

A nice French look on this stall outside.

Now this antique wholecloth Durham quilt I really would have liked to bring home with me.  The palest Primrose yellow, and beautifully hand-quilted.  £250 and worth it.

An American quilt here from 1906. I haven't seen one anything like that before.  The panda is a very early one too, made when Ming was given to London Zoo in 1938. The open book beside her shows a photo of her there.

Another lovely old hand made and hand quilted quilt.

This is a Russian quilt.  It has a big opening in the back (to the left) where you can add a blanket in winter.  This is summer mode.  What an unusual thing to find.  However, talking to the dealer, she gets round a bit more than I do.

Jennie-envy here.  Keith and I always wanted one of the primitive rush light holders/early candle holders you can see here in the centre.  Prices prohibitive, and this isn't quite the right house for them.

Lastly, aren't these cats (and animals) fun?  Can't remember the ceramicist who makes them, but collectable at about £60 a time.

So, a really lovely day was had.  I saw lots of friends and chatted to them.  Made a new friend in the dealer with the quilts (our friend of 10 years +, Lesley, has a few things on this stand and helps out.  

On the way home I bought myself a double cherry Magnum ice cream - I was NOT going to pay £5 for a Mr Whippee on the showground!

I stopped at the little (an understatement!) "Antiques Fair" I was going to do until I realized that it clashed with Malvern.  Just as well, it would have been a total waste of time and money, and the live music would have driven me mad after just 5 minutes!  I met up with the lass who was selling a corner cupboard I need for my Unit.  Just what I wanted, and we had a lovely natter.  She sells Heritage and  Welsh fruit trees, so I have taken her business card and will go and visit her nursery near Brecon.  

Just what I wanted.

It was pretty hot today, but not as bad as the 29 deg. threatened.  I changed out of my jeans and trainers after the first hour, when I had to go back to the car anyway to unload Heavy Things from my trolley.  I sat and ate my breakfast/lunch roll, clad in my t-shirt and knickers and with a cooler pack stuffed into my bra!  (Perhaps best not to dwell to long on the picture this may evoke!!)  I had bought my jersey skirt and some sandals, just the thing for further strolls round the Fair.  I clocked up over 15,500 steps,  burned 708 calories and was energetic for 102 minutes and less energetic for nearly as much again!  I have been SO HAPPY today :)